I really don't think you'd need to overclock a 3.0 Ghz Core2Duo... it's PLENTY fast as is. Plain and simple.

Yeah - I would do that too, but the problem is, he doesn't have the money to upgrade all of that at once, and the problem is, if he gets the new processor, he'll need the new mobo, and that means he'll need the graphics card (no onboard) and THAT means he'll need the PSU. So he's stuck getting everything. Or he can get the power supply, RAM and graphics card now, and then get the mobo and CPU later...

But that's the thing, the Intel IS faster stock. My 2.0 Ghz Intel Core2Duo in my laptop is a FAIR BIT FASTER than my 2.8 Ghz AMD FX-62 in my desktop. THAT'S how much better Intel is at the moment.

Quote from anik360 :

The way I would do is hold back on the GFX card and get yourself a decent power to "actually run" the 8800 is get yourself a c2d most likely an e2xxx series and more specifically a 2140 or 2180 or go more on e6xxx, Qxxxx or the new e8xxx(wolfdale) chips, but do remember that the wolfdales do require newer chipsets with 45nm support. Next is to get ram and get XMS 2 because of 1.) it has gotten cheaper to get and 2.) provides quite a punch for its value (2gb version kicks ass I've got them). Third is just get a good PSU and get a beefy 650 watt ones and from a good reputable company. I didn't Mention HDD's because you can just transfer your old HDD in the new heart and the last two steps is getting a pretty solid case and a decent mobo. All together can come up to upto 350 but worth every penny for the future

Thing is, I don't really see a reason why he should get the new CPU before the new graphics card. If he gets the CPU, he will need a new mobo, and that means he will need a new card anyway - which means a lot of money. OR he could just get the card now, which will provide a decent boost in gaming performance, and then get the new mobo a bit later when he has more money and get ANOTHER boost.

Well, that's not TOO too shabby. The P4 is definitely going to hold you back... a lot. But hey, right now it's the onboard that's holding you back... massively - so it'll be a significant boost anyway. The issue at this point is going to be:

a.) Make sure your power supply will be able to power the card. You may not even have a PCI-E power adapter... though I think you likely will. It's usually not recommended to run an 8800GT on anything less than 400W. You might have to replace the power supply as well. In fact, I'd recommend it.

b.) Simple, but just be sure the card will actually FIT, lol.

Quote from robt :

i havnt kept up with technology since i built my last pc.

Meaning that you don't realize the giant leaps Intel has taken.

Quote :

maybe im missing something.

Yes... the whole part where Intel leapfrogs AMD to become the ultimate CPU... by far. You should REALLY reconsider (this from an AMD fan.)

But I respect your decision. Not too sure about your board there. I highly recommend Asus, but I don't know too much about that board. Reviews seem kind of 'eh.

Quote from The Moose :

Who uses the default theme anyway? That's one thing i like about Firefox, hundreds of nice themes available

Unfortunately, not for version 3 atm. Soon, though... I hope. I'm sad I've lost my TabEffect plug-in (rotating cube switching between tabs) and Fullerscreen kind of works, unless you're looking at a .swf file, in which case it screws everything up.

But yeah, I miss my add-on theme.

I've owned one Gigabyte board in my life, and it wasn't too shabby - until i shorted it with a screw. Asus FTW though!!! (although slightly more expensive...)

Jakg is right - although I love AMD, and I HAVE an AMD, if I built a computer right now, it'd be an Intel (they're way ahead atm.)

As for the GFX card - you aren't necessarily paying a premium price for DX10 when you buy an 8800 - you're just paying the price for the current great graphics card, which also happens to support it. It's not even that fantastic of a card for DX10. That's the card to get - regardless of whether or not you'll be using Vista.

8800GT - 512 Mb - $240

Corsair RAM (2x1Gb @ 4-4-4-12) - $54

Total: $294

- Also $20 MIR if you count that sort of stuff...

Out of curiosity - why not Newegg, for example? That's the site you SHOULD be buying from.

Last edited by Stang70Fastback, Wed 13 Feb 2008, 20:54.

Yeah - Jakg, it doesn't look that different physically, but there are a lot of tiny changes that make it a much bigger joy to use.

My favorite feature is the new address bar history stuff:

-80 Gb - $40
160 Gb - $50
250 Gb - $65
320 Gb - $85
400 Gb - $100
500 Gb - $120
750 Gb - $175
--1 Tb - $250

Sorry for the $'s, lol.

PSU: Will depend on what you put in it - but look into one of the Corsair ones. Though that may not be a good choice as they are a bit expensive. Good quality though.

My first wheel was the Microsoft Sidewinder wheel (with Monster Truck Madness 2!!!) Great piece of hardware. Always served me well, for YEARS until the power cord plug started getting finicky and I'd lose FFB in the middle of a race. Still, a piece of tape holds it in fine, and my friend is now using it!

Consider yourself lucky. Mine did that from the day I took it out of the box. I think I've gotten reverse once in the year I've been driving.

Pain in the ass having to change it to 6th or reverse depending on the track/car/need.

FZ5 and LX6 and FOX would be the three I'd vote to keep if I had to...

That's a good point. If you really are on a tight budget, you may as well just get one bigger drive.

YES, OK EVERYONE. WE ALL KNOW THAT THERE ARE A GAZILLION POSTS ON THIS TOPIC ALREADY! NO NEED TO BERATE HIM WITH FOUL LANGUAGE AND PROVIDE THE LINKS TO THE LIKE 1,000,000+ OTHER POSTS ALREADY ON THIS TOPIC!

Everyone will agree with most of what you suggested, but like you said, these are things that do need improvement, and are planned to be improved, but there are a lot of other things they are working on at the moment that are more important.

I believe so. RAID 1 means that both drives are exact duplicates of each other. I'm not familiar with the technicalities of it though.

And what? MY ADVICE ISN'T ENOUGH?!??!

XKCD rules <<--- one of my favorites

Oh, and one more.

RAID is a way to setting up your drives in different configurations.

Here's the Wiki article explaining it, but here's the basics:

RAID 0: Takes multiple hard drives and "links" them together to create one big drive. So, say you have three 320Gb drives. If you don't use RAID, then in Windows, you will see Drive C (which will be where Windows is installed), Drive D and Drive E. If you apply RAID 0, they will show up as one giant Drive C with 960 Gb. It's convenient (for some people) but it's also good because it affords faster read/write times, since the computer is reading the data from all three drives at the same time, meaning it can access data three times as fast. However, you're three times more likely to have a drive failure - which will mean you lose all your data (on ALL drives since it's spread across them.)

RAID 1: For this you need an even number of drives, and all it does is mirror the data from one drive onto another. This means that you always have two copies of each drive (or each set of drives, if you have RAID 0) so that if one fails, not only do you not lose any data, but you can keep using your computer normally. All you have to do is replace the dead drive and it will "rebuild" the setup to how it was previously. Main issue with this setup is that you only get to use half the storage you have free, since half is devoted to a second copy. Great if you're a data-loss freak though!

There are other RAID configurations you can read about in the article, but those are the two basic ones. RAID 0+1 for example, takes, say three hard drives - and makes them look like one big drive - and then mirrors those to three more drives acting as one big drive (so, RAID 1 applied to a RAID 0 setup.)

What are you running it at and what ARE the temps? Just out of curiosity.

Screw you for getting that stuck in my head 15 minutes before economics class (we have a quiz today dammit.)

Yeah - I downloaded it yesterday actually, and I find it's a pretty big improvement over the previous one. I sure as hell hope they've fixed the memory leak though.

Here's one for all ye overseas ppl



EDIT: Good timing dammit, lol.

Yeah - I would have preferred that setup, but that's just the way the setup led me into it And I'm not about to create another account and fight with settings again.

Funny. The handbrake is like THE stunt tool of any car...

...but I guess if it isn't COOL to use it, then you shouldn't